1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for securities transactions, and more particularly to systems and methods for client securities transactions where a trading engine enables the trading of fraction shares in real time as well as reduces the frequency of orders sent to market by executing principal trades against the inventory account.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, investors are limited in the ways in which the can customize and shop for securities. Using existing systems, investors can purchase individual securities either online or through full service brokers. They can also purchase a variety of “actively managed” mutual portfolios. These are portfolios into which investors place their capital and authorize a third party manager to invest such capital without prior approval, but within the parameters defined by the portfolio mandate. Investors can also purchase exchange traded funds. These portfolios, however, are standardized and do not offer the investor the opportunity to customize them in any way.
Existing systems also lack a variety of client-friendly features that would not only make investing more accessible to the average consumer, but at the same time provide powerful tools for creating and managing an investment portfolio. For example, available tools fail to allow a client to create a thematic portfolio based on a particular idea, or to tag securities using an idea-based taxonomy. Further, current systems generally display investment data in textual or tabular form, and do not provide the data in graphical forms that facilitate comparison or analysis of performance, risk, allocation, and other factors and statistics.
Accordingly, there exists a need for client-friendly, intuitive investment tools that address the shortcomings described above. There is a further need to provide systems and methods that allow clients to create, compare, customize, promote, track, optimize, and shop for portfolios of securities in real time and without aggregating transactions with third parties.